


Penny and Deadpool (are friends)

by Emily_F6



Series: Penny Parker Prompts [26]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Female Peter Parker, Gen, Homeless Peter Parker, Penny Parker - Freeform, Peter Parker Whump, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:11:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26160151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emily_F6/pseuds/Emily_F6
Summary: Prompt: Deadpool finds Penny when she's in trouble and helps her.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Wade Wilson
Series: Penny Parker Prompts [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1899553
Comments: 9
Kudos: 307





	Penny and Deadpool (are friends)

The first time Penny saw the man in red, she’d been living on the streets for almost a month. Her eyes were heavy as she sat huddled underneath her winter coat, her backpack clutched between her knees. Shivering and leaning her head back against the brick wall, she started to close her eyes when her senses went off, warning her that someone was watching her. With MJ’s help, she’d done everything she could imagine to conceal her true identity. She’d started by bleaching her hair and letting MJ hack it off in a messy bob, and then her friend had given her a backpack full of her old clothes, most of them with hoods that would conceal her face…and keep her warm. 

It wasn’t until after she’d done all that that she’d realized no one in New York paid any mind to the homeless kids on the street. She could have just saved herself the trouble…it wasn’t like her foster mother was looking for her. The woman had waited three days to report her missing…she’d said nothing to the person who had written the story about why Penny would have run away. She’d seen the newspaper article…troubled teen runs away from foster family. Luckily MJ hadn’t believed the troubled part. Instead, she’d taken one look at Penny’s tearstained face and had ushered her inside. Thankfully her mother hadn’t been home, and so her friend had spent the whole evening helping her pack what she’d need.

Most of the things in the backpack, including the backpack itself, had belonged to MJ. 

Once the weather turned cold, MJ had insisted Penny come over and sleep in her room. Her parents never went in there anyway. She’d also offered to lend Penny her textbooks so that she could keep up with school, and Ned had offered the same. They both knew why she’d run. Neither blamed her. Both wanted to help. But they were all just kids.

The man in red stood at the mouth of the alley, and Penny’s senses twinged. She knew she should have picked a spot on the roof. But the air was colder, the winder harsher up there, so she’d thought she’d be okay in an alley for the night. Part of her wanted to go to MJ’s or Ned’s place…but the more she slept there, the greater her chances of being caught, and who knew what the police would do with a troubled teen runaway. So she gripped her backpack in her hand, ready to run. Ready to take to the walls and climb to the roof and then run…pull out her webshooters only half full of web fluid that she had no idea how she would refill and swing as far and as fast as she could. 

But the man in red didn’t approach her…only cocked his head and studied her. His mask had wide, black lenses, and on his back were what looked like swords. She didn’t think he wanted to hurt her…then again, it wasn’t like she could read his face. “You okay there, kid?” he called, crossing his arms. Penny turned away from him, just a little, and clutched her backpack closer. Most people gave up when she didn’t answer them. When she wasn’t friendly. Before all this, before she lost her last two living relatives and ran away from that woman.

Penny didn’t know what they’d do if they caught her…if they’d send her back to that woman or if she’d have to roll the dice and end up with an even worse family. Or maybe she’d be taken in by a great person who would love her. She knew the foster system was full of great families that wanted to take in kids. Either way, she wasn’t willing to risk it. Not with her secret identity to consider. She was, she figured, better off alone. 

When she looked back at the mouth of the alley, the man in the weird mask was gone, just like she figured he’d be.

She knew that she was lucky, all things considered. The woman hadn’t done more than hit her. Really, she thought as she made her way down the street the next morning, it could have been so much worse. It had started with a slap to the back of the head and had escalated and really, she asked herself, shouldn’t she have just tolerated it? Stuck it out for a few years, or at least until she was sixteen and old enough to get a job? Maybe they could have learned to get along. Maybe it never would have gotten worse. And, she told herself, ducking into a local McDonalds to fork over the dollar to get herself a coffee, she was Spider-Girl. At least, that’s what the people on Youtube called her. She’d only gotten her powers a few months ago and after making herself a makeshift suit, she’d started trying to help people.

It all felt so silly now, so childish. So she’d given some tourists directions and stopped, like, two muggings. That didn’t make her a superhero. Especially not now.

She took the cup of coffee outside to drink, grateful that in April, it was warm enough in the mornings that she didn’t need to take shelter inside where people might look at her. Might question what a young teenager was doing out alone dressed in a somewhat ratty old hoodie and carrying a stuffed backpack. New York, though, was filled with young homeless kids that no one looked twice at, so, in that way too, she was lucky. As long as she stayed away from all the places she’d spent time in before. New York was a big city. She had plenty of hiding places to choose from.

She was lucky in her friends, too. MJ had flat out told her not to go back. “She’s hitting you. That’s not okay.” She’d told her friend, voice a bit sharp.

“But if I tell someone …what if they just send me somewhere worse?”

She knew that MJ had wanted to tell her to report them to. To report every person that hurt her until she could find a safe place to live. To keep up the fight until the fight was won. But she must have seen the exhaustion and pain in Penny’s gaze. Must have seen it in the way she’d sat on MJ’s bed, head resting against the wall, eyes closing, one covered in a bruise and swelling shut. 

“So you’re running away?” MJ had asked instead, no judgment in her voice. And Penny had nodded. “Okay. We’ll figure this out.”

She was lucky that her friends both left their windows open, and that in the middle of the day she could go to either of their places, slip inside, and take a shower. Maybe grab a little food. She was lucky that they left folded dollar bills in envelopes every week they could, money for her to buy her own food or to top off the prepaid cellphone Ned had gotten her, a junky flip phone that let her text them when she was feeling particularly lonely.

Penny was lucky. Lucky that she could get clean and lucky she was able to hide and lucky that she was white and lucky that no one was looking for her, not really. But how long would her luck last? How long would Ned and MJ be able to help her? 

After finishing the coffee, she went into a gas station, using the bathroom and washing her face, then filling her reusable water bottle in the sink. The water was only somewhat cold, but it was better than going thirsty. Then she bought the cheapest snacks she could, carefully counting out each dollar, then took her bag of food out and into the alley. 

She needed to find a place to stay. A more permanent hiding place where she would be sheltered from the elements, at least a little. It had only rained a few times since she’d struck out on her own on the streets of New York, but she’d been able to sleep behind dumpsters, the lids open to give her a little shelter. Still, she’d gotten wet in the end. MJ had texted her, asking her to come sleep in her room, but Penny had assured her that she’d found a dry place. 

MJ didn’t deserve this burden of taking care of her. Neither did Ned. One day, she thought, they’d realize that. That, she knew, was when her luck would run out.

She zipped up her hood and pulled on her goggles, changing on a rooftop where she was pretty well hidden behind some crates, then strapped her webshooters on. Penny wondered if she could sneak into the school and make more. It wasn’t technically stealing. She’d gone to school there. Had used their chemicals before and had been a top student. Surely, after everything, she deserved this. Still, as she scoured the city for a place to stay, stashing her precious backpack behind those crates and putting her phone and money in her pockets, she made sure to only use her webshooters when she had to.

No more tightrope walking or swinging for fun. She used them only when the distance between buildings was too much to jump.

People noticed her. They seemed to be more and more aware of Spider-Girl, so she waved and stopped a guy from stealing an old lady’s purse and guiltily accepted the crisp $10 bill the woman handed her with many whispered ‘thank you’s’. She saved a cat from a tree and stopped a group of older girls from pushing around a little boy, her stomach screaming in hunger all the while.

She was resting on a rooftop amongst some abandoned warehouses, taking a quick rest before choosing a place, when she saw him again. The man’s feet clanged on the rooftop and Penny turned to find the man in the mask approaching, something in his hand. Penny jumped to her feet, ready to flee or fight, whichever she had to do, when he held up a hand. 

“I come in peace, Spider…girl? Spider woman? Spider person?”

Penny was silent for a moment before muttering, “Spider-Girl.” 

“Right. Here. They gave me extra and you looked like you might need it.”

Penny stared at the bag, then took it, watching his other hand all the while. Inside were three cheeseburgers and a full sack of fries. She practically started drooling under the mask and lowered her face, blushing and glad he couldn’t see. “You didn’t have to…”

“Don’t worry about. Catch you later.”

And with that, he was gone.

Penny found a good hiding place in the upper levels over a warehouse so dusty it would have killed her pre-asthma-healing spider bite. The lower floors were full of trash and graffiti and the occasional sleeping bag, but the fourth floor, which was little more than a walkway filled with decaying boxes, hadn’t been touched in a while. The stairs had rusted away into a tetanus-promising mess, and she’d had to climb the wall for two floors to get to her new hiding spot. There was no access from the outside, the windows were barred, and the roof was mostly intact.

Home sweet home.

Over the next few days, Penny acquired a blanket (MJ), a sleeping bag (Ned) and a pillow (also Ned) and made her little nest behind some boxes, making sure to keep out of sight from the people down below. Sometimes they had fires in metal barrels, and Penny would smell beans or canned ravioli cooking, but she never joined them. Instead, she texted her friends that she was okay, flipped through the books they’d lent her, and tried not to think about the looming four years ahead of her. 

She would run out of luck. Her friends would stop caring or she would be caught or the warehouse would burn down, along with her and her backpack and the $42 she’d managed to save up. This couldn’t last forever. 

Penny was stopping a mugging when it happened. She’d done this a thousand times. Or, that’s how it felt. The man’s briefcase had been stolen and she chased the mugger into an alley, not seeing the second man until the last minute. Maybe it was because she was so tired, or because she hadn’t eaten in hours. 

Either way, the knife plunged into her side and then she was on the ground, mouth open as she gasped for air. Penny placed a hand on the ground, knees aching from where they’d slammed into the concrete, one hand pressed desperately to her side. No…no, this couldn’t be happening. No. Her brain refused, even as the men ran away, briefcase still in tow, and she tried to push herself to her feet but she only stumbled forward, crumbling once more and collapsing. 

Penny pressed as hard as she could, closing her eyes and feeling tears run down her cheeks under the mask. “No,” she whispered, voice breaking. “Please, no…”. No matter how hard she pressed the blood kept flowing from the wound, and it wasn’t too long before she couldn’t press down any more…couldn’t keep her eyes open.

And then hands were yanking off her mask, but all she could do was sob and turn her face away. “Hold on. Shit. Fuck! Just…give me a second, Spidey.” Opening her eyes, she found herself looking up at the man in red who was kneeling over her, hands pressed to her side. “Any chance you have a mutation that instantly heals all wounds and keeps you from dying, possibly acquired in a lab while being tortured by a sadistic dick?” 

“What?” Penny asked, shaking her head a little as she did her best to keep up with the conversation. She knew those words. She was smart! But none of them made any sense when put together. 

“Yeah, didn’t think so,” He grumbled, then pulled her sweatshirt up and pressed something to her side, not even flinching when she screamed. “Tell me about it,” He agreed, then used what felt like tape to keep something in place before scooping her up. “Come on. Time for a field trip.”

Penny wasn’t aware of where they were going. All she knew was that he was holding her, and then they were sitting, and then there was another voice. “What the hell?”

“Oh hey Iron Man.” Arms wrapped around her, picking her up again. “I heard you were looking for this.” There was a long pause, and Penny thought about opening her eyes but ultimately decided against it. Her side still ached, and breathing still hurt, so she thought that maybe if she got some more sleep, this problem might take care of itself.

“What did you do to her?” The other voice demanded.

“I saved her life. You’re welcome.” Came the level reply. “So. You’re the leader of a band of superheroes. She’s a super-powered vigilante. You have what I assume is an above-average number of guest rooms, she’s a homeless runaway. It’s like a platonic match made in heaven.”

“Deadpool…”

Suddenly, the man holding her went a little quiet…and much more serious. “Look, Stark, this kid has been homeless for almost two months, and she’s still trying to help people. That’s right up your alley. Today, she got stabbed for it, and I’ve been trying to watch out for her, but I won’t always be around to keep an eye on her. She needs someone doing that full time. Who better than Tony Stark himself?”

There was a pause, but then the other man, the one the man with the mask had called ‘Tony Stark’ which made no sense because why would he know Iron Man, spoke. “Come on. Quick. Get her inside.” He urged then, and it all blurred. Someone touched her side and she screamed, throwing her head back and begging them to stop, but another hand touched her hair.

“Hey, hey…Penny? It’s Penny, right?”

She finally opened her eyes and found herself looking up at a ceiling, and at a man she’d only seen on TV. “You…you’re…”. She tried, her voice a croak, but Tony Stark shook his head, his hand resting on her head.

“It’s okay. I’m Tony. Your name is Penny?” 

She nodded, gasping when something else touched her wound, but he moved closer before she could turn her head to figure out what was happening. 

“You’re in my tower, in the medbay. You’re going to be okay. I have some doctors here and they’re going to help you.” He spoke in a calm, measured voice, but his hand on her hair was gentle. It moved after a moment, wiping her cheek. “I’ve been looking for you, Spider-Girl. Wanted to see what you thought about hanging out with the Avengers. You know we’re always hiring.”

She couldn’t quite make sense of all his words, but they were gentle and soothing and her eyelids were drooping.

“You can sleep, kiddo. You’re safe.”

“Don’t…don’t tell her…”. Penny begged with the last of her consciousness, fighting to stay awake just a little longer. “Please…sir…”. She reached out for him, managing to find his sleeve and grip it. 

“Don’t tell who?” 

“She…she hit me. If she finds out…”

“Are you talking about your foster parent?” 

Penny nodded, more tears falling. “I’m fine. I can…just four more years and…”

Mr. Stark’s eyes went hard for a moment before he gave her a gentle smile, his hand gripping hers. “Hey, don’t worry about that right now. I’ll take care of it. You just get some rest.”

And, with his hand holding hers, she did. 

Mr. Stark was the only one at her bedside when she woke up, phone in hand, expression solemn. “Hi. How are you feeling?” He asked first thing, watching as she sat up a little, her hand ghosting over her side which only ached a little now. 

“I’m…I’m okay.” She whispered, watching him warily. “Where am I?”

“You’re at the Avengers Tower. A private room in the medbay. You’ve been here since yesterday, but the doctors all say you’re out of the woods now.”

Penny just blinked at him, trying to remember. Surprisingly, she wasn’t hungry, which was usually her first thought in waking up. She felt well-rested and comfortable. Warm. Almost safe. She knew that she’d been stabbed, and that the man in the red mask had saved her. Bu…had he just dropped her off at Iron Man’s house?

“Here.” Mr. Stark grabbed a pitcher from the side of the table and poured her a glass of water that she downed. “I looked into you.” The words almost made her choke, but she swallowed hard and managed not to. “Penelope Parker. You go by Penny. Best grades in your year, almost in your school…until you went missing two months ago.” 

Dropping her eyes, she made herself a little smaller, bringing her knees up and crossing her arms.

“You went missing three and a half weeks after being put in a foster home.”

Penny’s eyes got hot but she still refused to look up.

“You said she hit you.”

“I should go.” 

“Woah.” Mr. Stark put a hand on her shoulder before she could swing her legs over the side of the bed, his other hand held up in surrender. “Hey, if you don’t want to talk about it, I’m not going to make you. Promise. And you don’t have to go back. No one is going to make you go anywhere.” He hesitated, then gave her a sheepish look. “Actually, I was going to ask if you wanted to stay here. I mean, I already have my lawyers figuring it all out, but I wanted to ask you first.”

“Stay here?”

“Yeah. I’ve got the room. I’m not saying I want to be your parent or anything. I mean, your terms, kid. If that’s what you want…”. He trailed off but gamely pressed on. I got permission to take you in. Get you back in school, all that.”

Penny blinked, heart filling with hope that she knew was dangerous. “You…you mean, I can…I can stay with you?”

“Yeah.” He cleared just throat, then lost the color in his face when she couldn’t hold back a sob, a hand flying to cover her mouth. “Woah, um…hey, don’t…”. He tried, putting a hand on her shoulder. 

“I’m sorry,”. She started, ignoring him when he shook his head. “You really don’t have to…”

“Hey. Look at me a sec.”. He ordered, and she did, her face turning up to his on autopilot. “I’m not saying that I’m going to be any good at this, or that I’m going to win any parenting awards. But you deserve a safe place to live, Penny. I can give you that. How about we start there, huh?” 

She sniffed and accepted the tissue he held out, wiping her face and blowing her nose and feeling, in general, like a mess. “I’m sorry…”

“Hey, no need to apologize, kid. You’re going to be fine. We can talk logistics later. For now, how about something to eat?”

The next time Penny saw the man in the red was nearly three months later.

She was in her new suit, the one Mr. Stark had made for her not two days after she’d woken up and moved permanently into a room on his floor, and had just stopped a grand theft bicycle. She’d wandered up to a nearby rooftop and had sat down for a moment to text Mr. Stark that she was on her way home, when he joined her.

“Hey there, Spidey.” He greeted, dropping onto the roof beside her and handing over a sack of food. 

“Hi. I never caught your name.”

“Wade.” The man held out a hand and she took it, pulling her mask up over her mouth so that she could take a bite of the burger. 

“Penny.”

“How are things with Stark?”

Penny thought back over the last three months… of moving into a bedroom full of new furniture and new things and new clothes. She thought about school, how everyone had stared for a while, but how Ned and MJ has stuck by her. She thought about movie nights with her friends at the tower, and how, slowly but surely, it felt like she and Mr. Stark were figuring out how to be a strange, unconventional, happy little family.

She thought about the nights she woke up, heart racing and tears pouring down her cheeks as nightmares of her aunt and uncle, or the foster home, or sleeping on the streets faded away, and how at first, Mr. Stark would just bring her a glass of water. She thought about the week before, when he’d sat beside her on the bed instead, pulling her into his arms and kissing her forehead. 

How he told her that everything was okay. That he was there. That he had her now. 

“Things are…they’re great. Thanks.”

And, pulling his own mask up to his nose, he grinned and took a bite of his burger. “Good to hear.”

**Thanks for reading!**


End file.
